


Two and Twenty

by MistressPandora



Category: Lord John Series - Diana Gabaldon, Outlander & Related Fandoms
Genre: And the dubious interpretation thereof, Explicit Sexual Content, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Shakespearean Sonnets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:26:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24889093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressPandora/pseuds/MistressPandora
Summary: Here, as equals, so far away from the trappings of station and society, reading sonnets and drinking French wine, there was no reason whatsoever that Tom Byrdshouldn't,kiss Lord John Grey.
Relationships: Tom Byrd/Lord John Grey
Comments: 10
Kudos: 29
Collections: Outlander Bingo Challenge





	Two and Twenty

**Author's Note:**

> Posted in celebration of Tom Byrd's 280th birthday. He doesn't have a canon birthday, so some of us made one up.
> 
> This fills my Outlander Bingo square: **Coming Untouched**

Lord John Grey kept a copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets and poems in his rooms. Tom Byrd had discovered it for the first time a few weeks ago, stacked neatly on the mantle with a selection of other favorites. Two nights later it had been on the table next to one of the plush wing chairs. Another, it was tossed carelessly on the bedspread. This evening, when Tom had come up to His Lordship’s rooms at his employer’s suggestion, he’d found the little book on the settee. 

Lord John had invited him to make himself at home. “Please take the evening at your leisure,” he’d said. “Call upon friends or family, if you wish.” He’d hesitated then, his gaze cutting through Tom with the precision of a sharpened blade, leaving him feeling pleasantly warm all over. “Or, if you are amenable to it, I would very much enjoy the pleasure of your company. As your friend.”

Tom had smiled, saw the soft expression reflected back at him from Lord John’s face as well. “I would like that very much, Me Lord.” 

And that was how Tom came to be here, in Lord John’s rooms, curled up on the settee in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, flipping through the book of sonnets by the light of the hearth and the candles throughout the room. He made to rise when Lord John pushed open the door carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses.

“No, no, Tom, please. Keep your seat, it’s alright,” Lord John said. He nudged the door shut behind him with his foot and set his burden on the nearest table. 

Tom sat up straighter, itching to stand up and take over but Lord John’s tone had left little room for argument. “That’s very kind of you, Me Lord.” His thumbs traced the outer seam of his breeches, finding some reassurance in the confirmation that there were no rents or loose threads. The feel of the orderly stitches helped to quiet his conflicted mind. 

Lord John paused to remove his coat and drape it neatly over the back of a chair. The fond smile he gifted to Tom could have illuminated half the fine houses of London. “Not at all, Tom. I invited you to spend the evening here as my friend, which would make you my guest, would it not? It is therefore my sincerest pleasure to treat you as such.” He poured a deep red wine into two glasses and brought these with him to join Tom on the settee. Handing one to Tom, Lord John sat next to him, the book of sonnets on the cushion between them, open and face down to keep his page. “Ah, I see you found some light reading.”

“Yes, sir, I did.” Tom took a sip of the wine, inhaling its rich aroma. Earthy with a hint of sweet fruit, but it was quite dry on his pallet. It was cellar cool, the flavor smooth and a little bit tangy. Much better than what he normally drank. “Me mum used to recite one of these sonnets when I was a boy.”

“Which one? Do you know the number or the first line?” Lord John took a sip of his own wine, relaxing back against the arm of the settee. Tom always enjoyed seeing him let go of the tension he carried through the day, to see him shed the mask he wore and just be comfortable as himself when it was only the two of them.

Tom picked up the book and thumbed through the pages. “Yes, it was _Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?_ Mum said it was the most romantic poem ever written. I was looking for it. She never said what number it was.”

“Ah yes, that would be eighteen. Probably the most famous of Shakespeare’s sonnets.”

Tom felt Lord John’s eyes on him as he reversed course, turning the pages toward the front until he caught sight of the number eighteen. “Yes, this is it. Very good, Me Lord.” The wine went down easily and warmed his belly as he read the poem silently.

“I would very much like it if you used my Christian name, Tom.” Lord John raised his empty hand to gently fend off the argument that Tom was about to make. “It could be just tonight while you’re here in the capacity as my friend and guest, if that is more comfortable for you. You can try it out and I can go back to being _Your Lordship_ tomorrow. Besides, Shakespeare is meant to be read aloud. And you can’t very well expect it to resonate properly when you’re allowing yourself and your audience to be hindered by social constraints.” Lord John took another sip from his glass. “The sonnets are all about heart and soul and bridging gaps. You can’t let your head get in the way of your heart.”

Tom stared at Lord John through all of this. The tip of his tongue had gone dry and he closed his mouth, giving an uncertain nod. “As you wish, Me L—” he stopped in response to Lord John’s raised brow. He wasn’t taking no for an answer with this. “I mean, John.” It didn’t feel right on his lips and Tom tried again. “As you wish, _John.”_

John beamed at him again. He was apparently in very good spirits this evening and Tom’s heart skipped a beat or two to realize it. “Thank you, Tom.” He settled himself more comfortably, turning sideways so he could face Tom directly, resting one bent knee on the cushion between them. “Read number eighteen aloud. Say it just the way your mother used to recite it so I can hear it with your ears.”

There went that triphammer in Tom’s chest again, heat rising in his cheeks. He took another drink of wine, this one intending to quiet the churning in his mind. Perhaps if he didn’t think about it too much…

 _“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?  
_ _Thou art more lovely and more temperate:  
_ _Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,  
_ _And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:  
_ _Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,  
_ _And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;  
_ _And every fair from fair sometimes declines,  
_ _By change, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;  
_ _But thy eternal summer shall not fade,  
_ _Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,  
_ _Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,  
_ _When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;  
_ _So long as man can breathe, or eyes can see,  
_ _So long lives this, and gives life to thee.”_

The verse came easily, hearing his voice in time with the memory of his mother’s recitation of it. Tom could see her dreamy smile, hear her wistful sigh at the conclusion. He caught himself imitating both of these details and took a sip of wine to cover his embarrassment.

“What do you think, Tom?” Lord John— _no, just John_ —asked. His face was earnest and open, genuinely asking for Tom’s opinion. “Now that you’ve read it for yourself as a man, do you find it as romantic as your mother said it is?”

Tom furrowed his brow as he stared down at the page, considering. “I think so. I do like the end where he says that she’ll live forever in the lines of the verse.”

“He,” John said. 

“Pardon?”

“The first one hundred and twenty-six sonnets are written to or about a man.”

Tom gaped from John to the page and shook his head. “Me mum never mentioned _that.”_

John tapped his ring finger against the glass, the band of his sapphire ring chiming like a tiny bell. “No, I would imagine not.” 

“She just said it reminded her of someone. I always assumed she meant my father but she never did say. _”_ Tom had never paid it much attention before. “What do you think of it, John?

John gave him an approving smile at Tom’s use of his given name before answering seriously. “Well, eighteen is quite lovely, of course, there’s no doubt about that. However I would argue that the real magic happens in the sonnets leading up to it, in the space between seventeen and eighteen, specifically.”

Tom flipped the pages back, headed toward the beginning. “I don’t think I take your meaning.”

“Well, in the first seventeen sonnets, our dear poet is urging his friend to get married and build a family. But gradually, over the course of these, the tone changes, and the focus becomes less on the importance of fathering children and more on the virtues of the dedicatee. More on the growing feelings that Shakespeare has for this man.” Touching the tip of one long finger to his tongue, John leaned across the narrow distance and turned the pages back the way Tom had come. He tapped number seventeen. “Read that one next.”

Tom licked his lips and read aloud:

 _“Who will believe my verse in time to come,  
_ _If it were fill’d with your most high deserts?  
_ _Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb  
_ _Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.  
_ _If I could write the beauty of your eyes  
_ _And in fresh numbers number all your graces,  
_ _The age to come would say, ‘This poet lies;  
_ _Such heavenly touches ne’er touch’d earthly faces.’  
_ _So should my papers, yellow’d with their age,  
_ _Be scorn’d, like old men of less truth than tongue,  
_ _And your true rights be term’d a poet’s rage  
_ _And stretched metre of an antique song:  
_ _But were some child of yours alive that time,  
_ _You should live twice,--in it and in my rime.”_

“Do you see what I mean?” John asked.

Blinking down at the page, Tom reread the sonnet to himself, his mouth forming the words over again though he didn’t give voice to them. “He only mentions having children at the very end. It feels like an afterthought, as if he didn’t want to say it at all but felt he had to.”

John nodded, pleased. “Yes. Exactly.” He took a sip of his wine, clutched the class to his chest and it clicked against one of his pearl waistcoat buttons. John closed his eyes and let out a wistful sigh, his handsome face turned up toward the ceiling. “Oh Tom, what do you suppose happened between sonnets seventeen and eighteen? What might have passed between them that caused Shakespeare to stop holding back?”

Beginning to feel the wine as a lightness in his head, Tom took in the sight of John. The hearth and candlelight cast flickering gold shadows over his features, cut deeper the faint lines between his brows, smoothed the laugh lines around his eyes. The wine, a cabernet franc, Tom supposed, had left a little smear of velvety rouge on John’s lower lip. Tom licked his own lips as if it would somehow remove the stain by proxy. “I couldn’t say,” he answered at last. “Do you suppose he learned that this man returned his feelings?”

“Hmm,” John said, opening his eyes and straightening up. “I know what I like to think happened.” He leaned forward, bringing the two of them closer together. “I like to think that they stole away together. That they spent the evening drinking wine and discussing inconsequential things until, in a mad surge of drunken impetuousness, they confessed their love for each other. And then the next day, after a night of making ardent love in whatever little private haven they could manage, Shakespeare composed the eighteenth sonnet.” John finished speaking and paused, holding Tom’s gaze, his hand hovering no more than an inch from Tom’s leg but not touching. 

A shiver wriggled all the way down Tom’s spine, making all the hairs on his arms stand on end. Little butterflies of desire fluttered in his belly and Tom drained his wine glass in an attempt to settle them. It didn’t work.

John stood and took Tom’s empty wine glass, his fingers lingering against Tom’s long enough for his insides to twist and flutter like a tangle of thread in the breeze. This wasn’t the first time that Lord John— _no, just John he’d said_ —had touched him in some small, casual way, had pierced him with that gaze that saw directly inside of him. It wasn’t even the first time Tom had felt it so viscerally. Had met John's unblinking stare and begged within the sanctity of his own heart for John to lay that tender hand on his cheek or his waist or high up his thigh. _Please. Just touch me one time so I know you mean it._

John returned with their wine glasses refilled and sat next to Tom again, closer than before. 

“Would you say that seventeen is your favorite, then?” Tom asked. 

“No, not precisely,” John answered. Tom caught a whiff of sweet lemon verbena from John’s hair. “My favorites change sometimes.” John took a sip of his wine. “No. No, I take that back.” He touched Tom’s arm, just a brief connection with his shirtsleeve, but Tom could feel the warmth of John’s fingers through the fabric. “There is one that I am particularly fond of. May I?” 

Tom handed over the open book, their fingers brushing again. He took another drink of wine, truly starting to feel the effect of it. Perhaps John wouldn't notice if he shifted even closer to him on the settee if Tom acted like he was just getting comfortable… After a brief, tactical squirm, their legs touched on the cushion. 

John chewed on his lower lip as he turned the page but didn't move away. "Ah, here it is. This one tells us that the love is requited:

 _My glass shall not persuade me I am old,  
_ _So long as youth and thou are of one date;  
_ _But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,  
_ _Then look I death my days should expiate.  
_ _For all that beauty that doth cover thee  
_ _Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,  
_ _Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:  
_ _How can I then be elder than thou art?  
_ _O therefore, love, be of thyself so wary  
_ _As I, not for myself, but for thee will;  
_ _Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary  
_ _As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.  
_ _Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;  
_ _Thou gav’st me thine, not to give back again."_

Tom had read sonnet Seventeen aloud for the first time, a little unsure and focusing on the individual words rather than the cohesive verse. John read this one as if he hardly needed to see the words on the page. Every line, word, syllable, spoken with such tender emotion, such heartbreaking sincerity that he could have been speaking to his own young lover. 

Tom bit the inside of his cheek to stifle a whimper. He cleared his throat before asking, "Why are you so fond of that one?"

A light blush colored John's cheeks and he looked down, tilting his head quizzically to the side as if noticing their close proximity for the first time. His lips pulled back in another one of those beautiful, earnest smiles. "Because it speaks to my heart. Loving someone is an act of trust and devotion. As is love returned, which also has a way of keeping us young." He looked into Tom's eyes again, likely seeing more than just his face. "I don't suppose that makes a great deal of sense when you're two and twenty."

"It does a bit," Tom said. Then the wine made him a tiny bit reckless. "Is there someone who keeps you young, John?" It was beginning to feel less odd to use his name.

John looked straight through Tom, his gaze penetrating all the masks and barriers and layers of clothing between them. Tom had never before felt so thoroughly naked and exposed, especially not while still modestly dressed. With anyone else, it might have made him uncomfortable, but he _wanted_ John to look at him that way. Enjoyed it. Wanted to be truly naked and exposed and vulnerable _together_. The fear of rejection, worry of impropriety, all the wariness and social trappings that always held Tom back were rapidly evaporating as the wine seeped into his bones.

"I… believe there is," John answered. He ran the knuckles of his right hand against his chin, considering. He took a long drink of wine, and Tom watched his tongue dart out to catch an errant droplet from his lip. John nodded as he lowered his glass, thumbing ahead in the book. “Perhaps I’ll let the Bard himself help me explain.

 _So are you to my thoughts as food to life,  
_ _Or as sweet-season’d as showers are to the ground;  
_ _And for the peace of you I hold such strife  
_ _As ‘twixt a miser and his wealth his found;  
_ _Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon  
_ _Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;  
_ _Now counting best to be with you alone,  
_ _Then better’d that the world may see my pleasure:  
_ _Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,  
_ _And by and by clean starved for a look;  
_ _Possessing or pursuing no delight,  
_ Save what is had or must from you be took.  
 _Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,  
_ Or gluttoning on all, or all away.”

Tom leaned toward John as he read, drawn in by his cadence, by the way John’s mouth shaped words like _treasure_ , _pleasure,_ _feasting_ , and _possessing_. He wanted to taste those words, to feel them whispered against his lips, needed it like he needed his very next breath. He swallowed hard, his mouth gone drier than the cabernet. “Please,” Tom whispered. “Please explain it to me. That one is harder.” 

John matched Tom’s movement, the two of them perched on the settee, leaning in, mere inches separating them now. “If twenty-two speaks to my heart, then seventy-five reflects the battle between my mind and my body. To be in physical need of ones beloved, to… _crave_ more of them always. But to fear the loss of them, either by the seeking of more or through the meddling of another. To be unable to find the balance between feast and famine.” 

Those long fingers found their way to Tom’s cheek, tender and unassuming. It sent bolts of lightning across Tom’s skin, into him and through him. It cut a path to his stiff prick, twitching and leaking and desperate in his breeches. 

“To spend the day as a miser,” John went on, still touching, “collecting all the moments with you to squirrel away in my heart and memory. Or to yearn for you though you are by my side, always starving.”

In this moment, as equals and unfettered as much by the sonnets as by very good French wine, there was no reason _not_ to close that gap. There was no reason whatsoever that Tom shouldn’t taste the earthy cabernet Franc on John’s lips. John wanted to, Tom could see it, could feel it in the sparks from his hand on Tom’s cheek. But no matter what he’d said regarding their stations this evening, John would never assume that liberty with Tom. It was up to Tom, then.

John’s tongue was warm and wet in Tom’s mouth, fingers tight in his hair, the scent of dark red wine and lemon verbena all around them. The heat of John’s touch may have melted Tom before, but this… _this_ was combustion. Too soon and too abruptly, John pulled away, though he kept his hand in Tom’s hair. His eyes darted across Tom’s face, unable to settle on any particular feature, searching. “Please forgive me, Tom,” he whispered, breathless. “It was wrong of me to take advantage.”

Tom shook his head, urgent and pleading. “No, it’s not taking advantage.” He ran a finger down the warm pearl buttons of John’s waistcoat. “You said we are equals tonight. Do you still mean that?”

John nodded, swallowed, and licked his lips. “I did say that. And I do still mean it.”

A blush heated Tom’s cheeks but he barrelled on. “In that case. Might I keep you young, John?”

“Sweet Jesus, Tom, I do love the sound of my name on your lips.”

Whatever embarrassment or nervousness that Tom held onto evaporated in that moment, scattered to the four winds by good wine and an overwhelming want that he couldn’t suppress any longer. “Then I’ll be sure to say it again while you’re inside me.”

“Christ.” John was everywhere, attacking stocks and buttons and laces with reckless abandon. And for once, Tom didn’t care. Could not care less if every stitch needed to be repaired and rebuilt. Even those fine pearl buttons could have scattered in a hailstorm upon the floorboards and Tom wouldn’t have cared. He could fix anything, clean anything. It wouldn’t matter in the slightest. All that mattered was that their damned clothes were gone.

One of John’s hands stayed on Tom all the while, tender as before, the heat of it greater. Tom swam in the rushing sensation of it, the urgency of John’s touch, the neediness of his kiss. He was blind and deaf to all things that were not _John_. 

Tom’s entire world narrowed to his hand in John’s, the feeling of being pulled gently by the arm, of rising. Shuffling steps backward until his bare legs collided with a plush coverlet and soft mattress. John’s strong arms around him, cradling him like some precious thing, laying him back on the bed. Hands, warm and gentle, caressing him everywhere. Kisses, thirsty and demanding, promising more. Tom’s lips, swollen and abandoned, John’s saliva cooling in the air. John’s mouth, peppering his chest with gentle bites, suckling and flicking his tongue over Tom’s nipples. Tom let out a wordless gasp, arching into the attention. Gooseflesh erupted across his chest and down his arms. A trail of sweet kisses town his torso, tickling his belly and sides. But Tom’s squirming and gasping only encouraged John, his hands tightening on Tom’s body, holding him steady and still.

Warm breath over his cock but no part of John touched him there. John licked the small droplets of leaked seed from Tom’s stomach and he shivered against Tom, moaning. “Oh, Tom,” John said. “My dear, you taste better than the wine.”

Tom whimpered, bucking his hips, desperate for more, needing to feel more of him. “Oh my. J—”

John’s hand came down over Tom’s mouth, stifling him. “Wait,” he whispered, a clear command. “Wait until my prick is inside you to say my name again.” 

Tom whimpered, but nodded. Then John’s strong hands held Tom’s legs apart, his tongue wet and warm at his hole. Another droplet of seed fell onto Tom’s stomach. “More. Please,” Tom gasped. 

John gave an approving hum, and slid one slick finger inside of Tom, his body easily accommodating the intimate intrusion. Tom bit hard on his lower lip to keep from saying John’s name, fighting to obey his one order. John whispered praises and sweet words, caressing his belly and inner thigh in slow circles. A second finger joined the first within him and a light sweat broke out over Tom’s body. He was drunk on John’s touch and his kisses, the cabernet be damned. Relaxing into it, letting his body go pliable as John worked him open came naturally. His fingers twisted and flexed, and found a place inside Tom that rocked him like an explosion. Tom gulped in a breath in preparation of a scream, but he clamped his own palm over his mouth, choking off the sound. Another fat drop of seed dribbled onto his stomach. John made a pleased hum and sank his teeth into the sensitive flesh of Tom’s inner thigh. 

“Oh, please.” Tom whimpered. “More. I need you to make me yours. Please.”

“As you like it, Tom.” John pulled his fingers out, leaving Tom feeling empty and regretful. 

But then John hovered over him, kissed his mouth again, smoothed the loose hair back from Tom’s face. “M _y glass shall not persuade me I am old,_ ” John whispered against Tom’s lips. “S _o long as youth and thou are of one date._ ” He pressed inside, so slowly Tom thought he hardly moved at all. “ _But when in thee time’s furrows I behold, Then look I death my days should expiate._ ”

“John!” Tom said, both a whisper and a shout. John paused and kissed Tom again, the two of them connected and complete. Tom nodded. “More.”

John began slowly, easing into a lazy rhythm. “ _For all that beauty that doth cover thee_ —God, Tom, you are beautiful, did you know that? _Is but the seemly raiment of my heart._ ” 

Tom wrapped his arms around John, held tightly to him, laid desperate kisses into the curve of John’s neck.

“ _Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me._ ” John bent down and kissed the flesh over Tom’s heart. “ _How can I then be elder than thou art? O therefore, love, be of thyself so wary._ ”

Tom found the ribbon binding John’s hair and tugged it free. The cascade of it surrounded them when John devoured his mouth again. “ _John_.”

“ _As I, not for myself, but for thee will; Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary._ ” John picked up the pace, his every thrust striking that gunpowder place inside Tom like an anvil, sending sparks and pleasure through him. “ _As tender nurse her babe from faring ill._ Can you finish like this, Tom? Can you spill yourself from my prick alone?”

“I think so.” Tom nodded, throwing his head back against the pillow. “Oh, _John!”_ It felt better now, the familiar address, the intimate use of John's name.

“Don’t hold back then, my Tom.” John whispered. “I’m so very close. Oh, _Christ. Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain. Thou gav’st me thine, not to give back again._ "

Ecstasy tore through Tom, his release hot and sticky between them. He stifled his cry by biting into John’s shoulder, holding on for dear life. John lost his rhythm in the chase, his strong fingers digging into Tom’s flesh as he kissed him with reckless abandon. 

It might have been hours that they lay, bodies still one. Tom smiled up at John, feeling sated and cared for. He swept a lock of John’s hair behind one ear. “How do you feel, John?"

John met his gaze, the smell of lemon verbena and sex an intoxicating aroma. “Not a day over two and twenty.”


End file.
